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Short Summary
Main recommendation: The speaker tells two stories illustrating how kindness, trust, and Torah study can make ordinary people into "giants." The speaker illustrates this through two stories: Rabbanit Sheila Feinstein's influence on a rebbe who caused a car accident on Staten Island, and a Siyum HaShas celebration that, according to a police officer, showed a nation of giants.
Key Points
- A Staten Island rebbe who rear-ended a car driven by a non-Jewish woman apologized, asked her not to involve police or insurance, and offered to pay for the damage.
- The woman agreed to repair the car at a friend's body shop, Mindy's, which gave a lower estimate, and later accepted installment payments of the bill over one year.
- She explained she trusted him because she worked in the public school system where Sheila Feinstein was her principal, so she knew he came from Feinstein's "tribe."
- After the Siyum HaShas at MetLife (Giants) Stadium on January 1, 2020, a police officer who stopped a famous principal (unnamed at his wife's request) in New Jersey on January 2 asked whether he had learned his page, and let him go with a promise to study.
- The officer relayed that a fellow officer admired the 95,000 people singing and dancing at the stadium and wished he were Jewish, then said it should be called "a stadium of giants" rather than Giants Stadium.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: When in a car accident you caused, the speaker's story shows apologizing, exchanging your name and number, and offering to cover the cost; getting a repair estimate; and, if the estimate is high, asking whether a trusted, lower-cost shop will do quality work.
- Concrete instructions: If you cannot pay a repair bill at once, the story shows proposing monthly payments over a year, sending a check on the first of each month, and delivering the final check in person.
- The woman's first estimate was high because she drove a fancy car; the rebbe's friend's shop was cheaper, and the woman agreed only after seeing the work was good.
- The rebbe asked the woman not to call police or make an insurance report; her trust, as she explained, was based on his connection to Sheila Feinstein, not on this request itself.
- The stadium celebration was the Siyum HaShas on January 1, 2020, and the story's date for the police encounter is January 2, 2020.
- The speaker says his wife asked him not to name the rabbi, so the rabbi is left unnamed.
Bottom Line
Kindness, honesty, and trust across differences can make ordinary people into giants, as both stories suggest.
